RULER

Dear Families,

Beginning this fall, teachers, school leaders and staff members in our school community will be learning about how we can use emotions to reach our goals. We have committed to implementing RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. RULER is also an acronym for the skills of emotional intelligence: Recognizing emotions, Understanding emotions, Labeling emotions, Expressing emotions, and Regulating emotions. Research from the field of emotion science finds that children who understand and manage their feelings make more responsible decisions, have stronger relationships, and perform better in school.

We have been practicing the skills over the past year, so that we have developed our own abilities, have become more emotionally intelligent educators and leaders, and ready to teach the RULER tools and model the skills for our students. We will be rolling it out with the students in the classrooms with the goal of integrating these mindsets and practices throughout our school. We feel committed to teaching middle schoolers to manage emotions in their everyday lives and navigate their social and academic demands successfully.

As we learn more about the skills of emotional intelligence, we’d like to do that in partnership with you. As such, we will be extending opportunities for parents and caregivers to learn more about RULER throughout the year.  Stay tuned for upcoming information about RULER! 

When schools and families partner around these goals, middle school students feel supported and reap the benefits.  We look forward to learning and growing together this year.

The Howe Middle Staff